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Social Impact Of The Internet Essay,
Research Paper

Introduction

The advent of
Internet communication technology is in and of itself, a positive
move toward overall global advancement, but the costly social impact
is what concerns Lebanese families and sociologists alike. This fear
is further amplified by the anticipated social disintegration that
may result.

The positive
aspects of the Internet:

As a result of
the Internet there is almost nothing that cannot be accomplished from
the comfort of one’s own home; grocery shopping, buying
merchandise, paying bill, researching for term papers and even
striking up relationships with people half way across the world.
Communication, which once consisted of putting pen to paper, has now
been reduced to a few key strokes and a click of a mouse; indeed,
people are able to correspond via E-mail faster and easier than
traditional mail services could ever hope to offer. The positive
aspects of the Internet are immeasurable and go without saying; this
paper’s focus is on the negative effects of the Internet.

The social
impact:

A. Alienation:

Alienation from
institutions such as the family, education and places of work may
result from the following factors:

Lack of
face-to-face socialisation is turning into a considerable problem for
those who have locked themselves inside the anonymity of their
computers. Indeed studies have shown the tendency for people to
become significantly stressed, depressed and lonely with each hour
spent in the obscure world of Internet chatting. Because there is
proof to substantiate the claim that the longer people spend chatting
on the Internet the less sociable they become, a considerable amount
of further research must be done to determine the extent of damage
this has on society. It is clear that even though Internet chat rooms
provide much the same interactive approach to socialisation, the
social implication is that it gravely lacks the in-person connection
required in order for people to develop acceptable social skills.
This will also affect negatively the way young teenagers socialise
with family members, friends and strangers in society. The reason of
this concern is the closely-knit society that we live in; Arab
society dictates strong interpersonal relationships whether be it
with family members or friends. So as we can see, lack of face to
face interaction will result in a fair amount of stress on the
fragile Lebanese society, which a large part of it is based on an
emotional relationship with each other, and as Patai wrote “the
Arab nation as an Arab family”.

B. Loss of own
culture:

In a critical
time where social integration is high on the agenda in post war
Lebanon, the Lebanese society is finding itself competing not only
with the existing forces of disintegration, but also with a new
unanticipated one. The Internet introduces an invasion of western
cultures into the homes of unsuspecting parents, which may lead to a
loss of one’s own culture and adopting a new foreign one. The
adoption of a new culture will cause the general public to resist
this change, thus the consequences will lead the youth to feel
rejected and further amplify the already existing social problem of
alienation from society as a whole. This alienation from the Arab
culture will lead the youth to strongly get attached to the new
culture that they have adopted, which will again translate into a
disastrous disintegration.

C. Loss of
identity:

Having mentioned
the factors that may lead to alienation and loss of culture, it
follows that these factors will also lead to a loss of identity. In a
time where national identity plays an important role in the social
integration of Lebanon, we cannot afford to let such a new force as
the Internet to destroy what we’ve been trying to build, and there
are some results of our efforts, for example, Qanna, Arnoun, and
recently Jezzine and the Asian basket ball tournament where Lebanon
won. Watching these incidents unfold in front of me, gave me hope for
a united Lebanon, since incidents like these were so hard to come by
before, now we are seeing more and more social integration between
all factions in Lebanon.

Seeing all this,
and getting a sense of nationalism I also get the shocking news about
the Internet and its effects on our society, did you know that 85% of
all pictures on the Internet are pornographic in nature?! That makes
me wonder what kind of exposure the Lebanese youth are encountering,
and what the effects on their values are. A recent report published
on CNN.com states, “More than 50 percent of parents of children
between 11 and 15 years old say they allow their kids to go online
whenever they feel like it. The number increases to 75 percent for
teenagers older than 16.” Even though this is a report for Internet
use among children in the states, but one can see how this is also
the case in Lebanon, how many Internet cafes are there? How many
network gaming centers are there? I used to work in an Internet caf?
as an Internet assistant, and I saw what the young school kids were
accessing without any grain of shame on their faces! In my experience
as an Internet assistant, their number one visited sites are
pornographic sites, which are more readily available than any other
site!

Conclusion

Even though the
Internet is a great advantage to Lebanon in terms of communications
technology and helping Lebanon get back on its feet, the Internet
also has negative implications on the social integrity of Lebanon.
These negative implications include:

a) Alienation

b) Loss of
culture

c) Loss of
identity

In other words,
globalization afforded by Internet communication has been hailed as
the precursor of a New World Order.

v Michiyo,
Yamada (1999, April). Most older kids surf unsupervised.

www.cnn.com

v Mowlana, Hamid
(1995, July). The communication paradox: Globalization may be just
another word for western cultural dominance. Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, vol. 51.

v Anonymous
(1998, August). More Internet use may cause depression; web hurts
social contact, study finds. The Washington Times

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